Double standards

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Just read this, and the last line in particular got me.

If what this fellow is saying is true, then we have a double standard in Israel. Normally I am firmly in Israel's camp on most issues, but I despise double standards wherever they rear their ugly heads. That said, though . . .

If a Jew pretended to be a Muslim to get some sex in a Muslim nation, would he be convicted of a crime? And if so, what would his punishment have been? Care to make any guesses about capital punishment or torture?

That doesn't excuse the Israeli court for it's double standards, though. And this is one case where my usual argument about being under threat from surrounding countries doesn't apply.

 

Ain't it amazing?

Just like those old miscegenation cases in the US that sought to protect decent women from smooth-tongued black men, or that in pre-45 Germany sought to protect decent German womenfolk from those ever lusting Jews.

Israeli judges are apparently capable of a remarkable extent of bigotry. In that they apparently reflect a trend in Israeli society. This story needs to be put in context of a current trend in Israel, where for example right wingers in Tel Aviv have established a municipal program to prevent Arab boys from dating Jewish girls. Indeed, that would be unacceptable. In pre-45 Germany authorities shared such concerns and had a word for it: Rassenschande!

From Jonathan Turley: ... Judge Segal acknowledged that this was not a “classical rape by force” but insisted that the woman clearly would not have had sex with an Arab ... Notably, the panel of judges insisted on jail time as a sentence - 18 months in prison - when probation was possible.

So according to the judge her sanctity of body and soul would have remained intact if she had spent that one night stand with a Jew. Interesting argument.

As Turley rightly points out, pick up lines are notoriously embellished if not outright false. To turn a one night stand into a crime over that reality? Ridiculous, wouldn't there be the serious consequence of a criminal conviction and jail time for the guy.

 

The legal logic makes perfect sense to me. If one party intentionally provided false information with the intent of gaining sexual contact that party would otherwise not have access to, gaining it through 'false consent', it is the same as gaining it without consent. I remember seeing an article in the US recently where a 30-something? woman (short and flat) pretended to be a 14-year-old boy to date a 14-year-old girl. The truth was found out before any sexual contact occurred, so there was no rape charge (or pedophilia for that matter), but there was a general hue and cry in the public theater. Whether the deciever swears he doesn't have HIV, or that she's over 18, or that his record studio is going through renovations right now, it may be legally considered a violation of consent. I think whether or not it should be criminalized entirely depends on the society making the laws, just as long as they're applied equally to everyone.

As to the double-standard, I have no idea. I don't know of any cases where a jew has lied to get into bed with a palestinian.

As to the social context, it is indeed worrying, and a dangerous reminder of the actions of a certain other government the Jews may or may not be familiar with.
*goose stepping heard in the background*

 

NOG,
don't be silly. The people here are consenting adults. Deceiving about HIV infection is not comparable either. This man was healthy, and he didn't harm her physically in any way. The problem lies elsewhere:

Imagine this woman had said she would only sleep with rich men, and that he had said that he is filthy rich in order to get laid. Events take their course and they have their one-night-stand. Imagine that then that she learned that he in fact was dirt poor. Can you imagine her then going to file rape charges against the deceiver with the police - and have a judge find that the sanctity of her body and soul had been violated?

Of course not.

Another variation: Imagine this guy had been a Jew who pretended to be a Muslim and to then have sex with a Muslim woman? Would he have been convicted of rape?

Of course not.

This obviously and so overtly is about racism that it is exceedingly hard to miss. I would almost suggest it needs wilfulness to.

It is even harder to miss considering that the judge pretty much said that she shouldn't have slept with an Arab. Better still: The judge seems to say that if a 'reasonable' Jewish woman knew a man was an Arab, then she would not make love to him. Let that sink in. And then: They met, shagged in a 'nearby building' that night (not that there is anything wrong with that), and the judge finds that he violated the 'sanctity' of her body and soul? Excuse me?

That 'legal logic [that] makes perfect sense' to you is something the judge drew out of his rear end. It is, to be charitable, a stretch of what rape means by any standard, and at best an analogy to rape. In German criminal law the analogous extension of criminal law norms are prohibited because that would be fundamentally unfair. I would be very surprised if under US law it is much different (someone indulge us).

And as for the goose stepping - the Israelis appear to be perfectly capable of create their unique own violent, ethnic nationalist utopia without having to emulate anyone. They sure are creative.

On the plus side, such cases never made it to court in America as far as African-Americans and Caucasian Americans is concerned: But judge, the only reason why I slept with him was because it was so dark! Had I known he was black ... never would I have considered laying with him ... and after all, who can one trust these days - he said he was blonde! That deceptive bastard!

 

As I said, it all depends on whether or not the society wishes to criminalize such deception, and for both of your examples below, yes I can see someone going to the police and claiming rape, especially if it's illegal to 'obtain' sex through deciet.

This is only obvious racism if you assume it to be. Now, if you can provide a parallel case where the complaint was thrown out, then I'll believe it's 'obviously' racism.

 

What? True to form ...

Forget it. If you don't get it by now, nothing I may write will change that.

Spoiler

Some hints anyway: A poll conducted in 2007 by Israel's Geocartography Institute found that more than 50 per cent of Israeli Jews thought marrying an Arab was "equal to national treason". Jews are legally forbidden to intermarry in Israel. Israeli drive to prevent Jewish girls dating Arabs. Israeli vigilantes target young Arab-Jewish couples.

From the Guardian:

From the Telegraph:

Start to get the idea?

Exclusive summary for NOG: The animating factor here is not the sex, it’s the despised ethnicity of the poser and his fradulent claim to be a member of a different ethnicity.

 

I am totally confused by this thread. Who is it that we are supposed to believe says "of course not"? NOG has a perfectly legitimate point for if I read this correctly it was "Gideon Levy, a liberal Israeli commentator" who said "of course not" not a judge, not a statute, not an attorney general, not a district attorney, not anybody associated with the Israeli legal system. Somehow this nitwit's editorial comments are being used to smear an entire nation and religion and that is despicable.

 

I am here to help you.

"The liberal," of course.

Right. We all know we can't find any liberals in any of those.

That's right. Liberals who do such things are nitwits. Is there an echo in here, or is it just me...?

And I bet you thought I couldn't help.

Snook - What you propose is "perfectly" (it's our new buzz word) reasonable. Except how many others have been prosecuted for this "crime" against society? NOG's problem is that he can't stick to the facts. No one had ADIS. And that's not the question. How many others are prosecuted for this, and WHO is being prosecuted, is the question before us. When we can answer that we will know. And that includes other forms of "fraud" in getting some action.



"Come on Eileen,
I swear (well he means) At this moment you mean everything,
With you in that dress my thoughts I confess verge on dirty
Ah come on Eileen."

Of course, this great song is MUCH more than a guy trying to get a girl to take off her red dress. But how many horny young guys have proclaimed: "At this moment you mean everything...and I will still love you in the morning, I SWEAR," and other LIES? Is that rape? Hardly. Besides, there isn't enough prisons to hold us all.

One of things I love about this video is the quick cut to the girls pushing a baby in a stroller on the sidewalk - caught in the web of his own deceptions.

 

I just want to confirm that you know it wasn't me who used the term "liberal" it was the way the article named the nitwit. I don't think that has any bearing on what is going on.

Maybe LKD originally planned for this to be a thread about rape, but it certainly quickly changed to a bash on Israel.

As to Dexy I hope you enjoy this as I just saw this and can't get it out of my head as I have always liked both songs.

 

Well, I didn't take it that way. And it shouldn't be taken that way. I'm thinking this is an isolated case and not really a crime against "society" in Israel. But I take it you agree that it was not rape?

Edit: Sorry, my kids didn't like your version as much as Dexy's. They are here sitting with me, distracting me, listening to the music, but not reading (I hope). Their comments were: "It's silly." Kids. What do they know?

 

I just spent some time looking at some of Ragusa's links. They all seem more hysteria then law. Clearly their are some municipal governments in Israel that are trying to persuade Jews from dating/marrying non-Jews (my grandmother did the same thing to me), but they haven't made it illegal so I don't see what the harm is.

I have a feeling that LKD misinterpreted the article he linked to and thought that it was somehow only illegal for a muslim to lie to have sex with a Jew, but the reverse was O.K. I have seen no evidence that actually makes that true, only the bleating of the guy quoted.

Now I do believe this was a ridiculous case and it is more than possible that the judge allowed his own prejudices to influence the case. I would like to think that a higher court will overturn it.

If every guy who ever misled a girl to get her into bed was put in prison I don't think there would be too many guys walking around freely. Hell, my college years would have made me a serial offender and in a three strikes state I'd be in prison for life.

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I don't know how old your kids are, but it gets worse when they get older. Teen Snook is 14 and he loves to play me a song that he thinks is awesome and then he is shocked when I start singing along. Of course the song he loves is a cover by a new band of a song twenty years old.

 

Well, I've heard that about every religion, including Catholics. But this is a case of rape, which it certainly may be a legal point, but so is meeting a train in Texas:

And no flirting allowed in SA:

Some laws are just silly.


http://www.loonylaws.com/Texas.htm

 

Yes. Courting the other sex is all about exaggerating your strengths and masking your weaknesses.

Let's remember that women also 'mislead' men with make-up and breast-implants. Look at a girl first thing in the morning, and then try and tell me that she isn't deceiving you throughout the day.

 

I don't know, but how many white men in the pre-civil rights US in the south, or in apartheid South-Africa for that matter, have been found guilty for violating miscegenation laws when sleeping with black women? How many black men were for sleeping with white women? The point is this:

The mere lack of such precedent for the vice-versa scenario can be due to the simple cause that they are not filed by the police, and thus are not funnelled into the court system, thus resulting in a lack of precedent.

If we are dealing with a biased society, as I think we do in this case, selective application of the law is eminently probable. I think the judge's remark about reasonable women not sleeping with an Arab if not for deception clearly suggests bias there as well. If it is the other way around ... well, boys will be boys ...

I do not deny that the case meets the elements of the crime as identified in the relevant Israeli case law. I suggest that it was only filed because of racial bias of the screwed woman in the first place, and decided as severely as it was because of the same factor.

On a personal note I think that the law is disturbingly broadly formulated, certainly far broader than the German counterpart.

And Snook,
you don't find anything peculiar about a government entity telling people who to bed with, setting up taxpayer funded counselling units to 'treat' those misled woman fancying Arabs, as if they were suicidal or mentally ill? As long as it is only societal shaming in some communities, as in vigilantes harassing mixed couples on the street (which has been tolerated for at least a decade), that is just normal? And as long as there is no criminal law that penalises mixed couples all that's normal?

Israeli authorities don't conduct marriages between Jews and Arabs. That is because only government-recognized religious authorities — all of whom disallow Jewish-Arab and same-sex marriages — may officiate marriages in Israel, with no provisions for civil or secular marriages. That's totally normal as well I guess.

The Knesseth has just enacted a law gives the (orthodox) Chief Rabbinate a monopoly on conversions. That is relevant as the Israeli Law of Return entitles only Jews to become Israeli citizens. The point is - who's Jewish and who's not is decided by the Chief Rabbinate, that has a history of not recognising conversions by non-orthodox Jewish groups. So the crucial question about whether a person will be granted citizen status is determined by an unelected, independent religious body. Totally normal. As a result of such laws, many non-Orthodox Jews, who are not willing to have the state impose Orthodox values upon them, choose to formally marry in Cyprus or some other venue. Totally normal either.

Not that long ago I found the 'Ariernachweis' of my late grandfather. IMO an obsession by religious folk, politicians and administrations with intermarriage and breeding is an unhealthy and disturbing sign. I think that Israeli fears about survival are causing the state and society to disintegrate.

 

This thread was not about rape per se, but about double standards. I am fully in agreement with Ragusa in that the racism behind the judges ruling is to me perfectly obvious (and once again, I'm very pro Israel and pro-Israeli, but nevertheless . . . ) in that the man's deceptions, while despicible, are not truly criminal, and that in addition to that, were the races reversed, the likelihood of the man going to trial in Israel is extremely slim. The decision seems to be based primarily on keeping those "filthy Palestinians" in line. In a military sense and in terms of defense from terrorism, I have little trouble with Israel's policies, but this case is purely social and has no military value, so the Israeli's have no leg to stand on.

That said, I also wanted to bring up another point, and perhaps didn't do so as clearly as I would have hoped. While Israel should draw some heat for this miscarriage of justice, if the religions / races were reversed and this case had occurred in, oh, let's say Saudi Arabia, and a Jewish fellow had lied to get some play from a Muslim woman, what would the result have been in that case? I postulate the following:

Death for the Jewish man.

Death for the Muslim woman who had sex not only out of wedlock, but with a "filthy Jew".

In terms of double standards, before we all get on the Israel bashing wagon too comfortably, lets acknowledge that while the Israeli courts have really screwed up on this one, they don't hold a candle to the racism, sexism, bigotry, and all around unfairness that exist in Israel's Middle Eastern neighbours.

 

LKD,
by western human rights standard Saudi law is egregious. It is perfectly clear that law there is a religious matter, and even by Muslim standards severe. Saudi Arabia doesn't even make pretences of tolerance. As bad as it is, at least they spare themselves the indignity of being hypocritical when being intolerant. They go all the way. Nothing new there.

And yes, Saudi Arabia is just an authoritarian theocracy, and the other states around Israel are ruled by authoritarian despots etc. pp. ... but Israel is the only western democracy in the Middle East. So what? So that the neighbours are supposedly worse is supposed to end all discussion?

Israel's declaration of independence reads:

It appears that being a democracy, a western democracy, even an only democracy, is not enough. After the talking the talk you have to walk the walk as well.

 

Nope, it's not supposed to end the discussion -- I started this particular discussion, remember? I don't think for a second that Israel should get a free pass.

But I would also be someone who espouses high ideals and sometimes falls short of them than someone who is a vicious, heartless a---ole who says "yeah, I stone people on a regular basis but at least I'm honest about it!"

In other words, I find hypocracy (or merely being human and flawed) to be less reprehensible than outright barbarism. I thinnk that the barbarity of the neighbours shouldn't be swept under the rug or forgotten in the liberal West's rush to crucify Israel. It always seems to me that we are really, really willing to criticize Israel (which is fine in and of itself) but when it is pointed out that there are much more severe problems in other Middle Eastern countries -- problems that are freaking orders of magnitude beyond what Israel is doing -- the response is "oh, well, no one expects them to be decent people, and anyway the Israeli's are actually WORSE because they claim to be a democracy!" That sort of approach doesn't wash with me. I'd rather live in a flawed state like Israel than in any of its neighbouring states under their current regimes.

Criticize away, but hold everyone to the same universal standard. Vile human rights violations are wrong no matter where they occur, and we should protest murder long before we protest petty infractions.

 

And if that's true, which I'm not about to say it isn't, then it's despicable and deplorable and yes, very similar to how the Nazis treated them (at least at first). All I'm saying is that the legal ruling, by itself, isn't necessarily wrong. If the same standard is applied to the reverse situation (and I have no idea if it would be or not, nor am I making any claims about it), then it's just a little strict. If it's a double standard, well, see above.

Excuse me? I'm having trouble sticking to facts? Where, exactly, have I verged from facts here, Chandos? I'm doing no worse than you on that.

Whoah, you can get jailed for not being good enough? That's harsh.

 

NOG,
the Canadians likely just want to make sure everybody takes sex education serious.

Seriously: The nature and quality of the act probably does not refer to graded performance in bed, but for instance rather to doctors telling patients that they are about to get a medical examination while they are actually making a sexual act i.e. deceiving the patient about the nature and quality (sexual, not medical) of the act in order to not elicit a defence.

(Beren: Exactly.)

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Unlike the barbarian the hypocrite knows better.